“To be honest, I tended to tune out during the reports. When the first warp five vessel was launched there was a lot of interest, but after a while, public interest waned, just as it did with the Apollo moon landings and the space shuttle, and the Mars-Venus project, and all the rest of it.”
“You wouldn’t think something as important would become so—”
“Boring?” Rasmussen offered.
“I was going to say ‘commonplace.’ ”
“That’s human nature, Geordi. Something is unusual only until it becomes usual. Then, very quickly, it becomes commonplace, and then boring.”
“When you think of the effort it took to get out here . . . the technological advances . . .”
“Yet once we’re out here we’re just . . . here. How long have you been chief engineer of the Enterprise?”
“Nineteen years, on two Enterprises. Why?”
“How often do you stop and think, ‘Wow, I’m off of humanity’s homeworld, in a starship crossing the universe?’”
“I’m always aware that—”
“How often do you think, ‘Hey, it’s time to clock in for my shift in engineering,’ or ‘When I get off work I’ll go and have some dinner?’” La Forge didn’t need to reply. His expression spoke volumes. “Exactly. It’s everyday, boring, humdrum.”
“It’s more than that! I had to work my butt off at Starfleet Academy, and—”
“And now it’s your everyday job. Don’t feel bad; like I said, it’s human nature.”
La Forge nodded toward the window. “Is that commonplace to you?”
Rasmussen glanced at Guinan again, and she knew it was anything but. “Not anymore,” he said at last.
7
Alyssa Ogawa led the first forensics team, in the runabout Clyde. It docked with the Intrepid’s starboard lock, and the pilot, a bluff New Zealander named Carter, remained aboard to make sure that the transporter and replicator were fully functioning while docked with the dead starship. He would also look after the stasis modules as they were returned to the runabout. When enough were aboard, he would fly them back to Challenger, rather than risk mixing up the remains’ already delicate molecular state by transporting them. Two med-techs were carrying the stasis modules off the runabout, which thankfully weren’t too hard to carry in the zero gravity aboard Intrepid.
The medical forensics team that Ogawa had assembled, though wearing EV suits with helmet lights, were grateful that the engineers had set up chains of lights in the main areas of the ship. The doctor knew that the Thames was docked at the port lock, and would remain there as a base of operations.
The lights were stuck high on the walls of the bridge, engineering, mess hall, and sickbay, and evenly spaced along the main corridor of each deck. The lights were impersonal and cold blue-white, and reminded Alyssa of the coldness of space.
Individual cabins, preserved with a sterility beyond that of ancient desert tombs, still needed to be searched, but the public areas of the ship had the most amount of biomatter coating the surfaces, and therefore the forensic team would handle them first.
“Let’s get this done,” Ogawa said to her people. “It should be quick, if we use the mass-attractors.” She had issued her team tools that generated a local gravity field over a few inches of space, in effect working as vacuum cleaners would if there was air in the ship.
Someone said, “The hard part comes later.”
Ogawa took a calming breath. “Let’s bring these people home.”
Aboard Challenger the next morning, La Forge grinned and gestured toward the main viewer. “We’ve got a good seal between the runabout Thames and the Intrepid’s port lock. We’ll be able to pressurize Intrepid from there.”
Scotty nodded. “No need to extend our shields or atmosphere shield around Intrepid?”
“None. We’ve scanned her down to the molecular level both inside and out. All breaches have been sealed.”
A broad smile spread below Scotty’s moustache. “Well, then. We only need Doctor Ogawa’s say-so.”
“The forensic recovery should be complete pretty soon.”
Leah Brahms ran a diagnostic on a near-fossilized circuit junction that had been brought back from Intrepid. Even though it had been sitting in Challenger’s calming warmth for several hours, it still felt icy cold to the touch, and Leah was beginning to think that it always would. The holographic master systems display in engineering sprang to life. Wisps of energy swirled and flowed, but always came up against barriers.
“It’s not our equipment,” she said to herself.
“You did say Intrepid was primitive,” Vol pointed out.
“The energy is entering the system, so the backwards compatibility isn’t in question. Something’s blocking the flow of energy within Intrepid’s systems.”
Vol’s eye peered at the display. “Looks like corrosion to me. It’s all bunged up. Happens a lot with the classics.”
“Well, let’s figure out how we’re going to un-bung it. Geordi, let’s—” She broke off, remembering that La Forge was on the bridge. She sighed. “Even on the bridge . . .”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, Vol. I was just . . . Nothing. Let’s keep working on this. Maybe Rasmussen can help.”
“Or the captain.”
“If nothing else, he’d love the excuse to come down here.” She thought about it for a moment. “All right, I’ll go across to the Intrepid and find some more pieces of circuit to bring back for testing. You get Scotty and Rasmussen down here, and see what they come up with.”
“Okey-dokey, Doc.”
The stasis unit that Alyssa Ogawa had chosen to contain the organic remains recovered from the Intrepid was a squat cylindrical tower with several access drawers, built into the corner of the Challenger’s sickbay. She watched as a pair of med-techs slid the last canister into one of the drawers. She stepped up to watch through a transparent panel as a servo arm slotted the canister into a free space like a bottle into a wine rack.
“Thanks,” she said to the techs, and then she tapped her combadge. “Doctor Ogawa to Captain Scott.”
“Scott here.”
“The last of the biomatter is safely in stasis. You can pressurize the Intrepid now.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“Ogawa out.” The doctor returned to the viewport to look at the silver canisters that were all frozen in the timelessness of the stasis chamber. No bacteria would be able to grow, if any contamination had occurred during their transport from the Intrepid, nor would the cells be able to decay any further.
The remains were still a homogenous jumble, and would need to be sorted into their respective individuals. That would be her grim task for the next few days, while the engineers enjoyed themselves playing with the antique ship.
Brahms arrived in the transporter room, where La Forge and Barclay were already waiting. As they materialized on the Thames, La Forge told them, “We’ve got the go-ahead to re-pressurize the Intrepid.”
“Right away, Commander.” Barclay sounded as delighted as Geordi was at the idea of being able to go aboard without the cumbersome EV suits. Of course it would still be cold on Intrepid, even though the air that he was about to begin circulating would warm the ship. But a nice warm field jacket was a lot easier to live with than a claustrophobic EV suit that magnified every sound and smell the body could make. Barclay squeezed in behind a bulky console that had been set up in place of the Thames’s conference table, and began operating it. A deep howling whoosh began to sound.
“Why am I here?” Brahms asked.
“I thought you might like to be the first person to board Intrepid without an EV suit.”
“You know all the romantic things to say, don’t you?”
La Forge chuckled, but knew she would want to leave that subject quickly. “I wasn’t thinking romantic, just efficient. It’s going to be a lot easier to work in there without the EV suits.” Magnetic boots would still be needed, of course, until
gravity was restored.
“There’s enough pressure for you to go in,” Barclay said.
“Shall we?” La Forge moved to the Thames’ s airlock and opened it. He gestured for Brahms to go through.
The Intrepid’s corridors were restored to their original colors, browns and grays, though the surfaces were matte and dull, with bumps and dents everywhere. A warm breeze was easing gently through the ship. “That feels nice,” Brahms said. The air smelled fresh.
“Yeah, it’s like being on a beach.”
“Once we get power back on line and Intrepid’s environmental support takes over, there’ll be no need for air to be circulated from the Clyde.”
“And then she’ll truly come alive.”
•••
Scotty walked into engineering with Rasmussen, trying to tune out the man’s constant yapping. He hadn’t shut up about the wonders of the twenty-second century since Scotty had called for him, and it was beginning to get annoying.
“Vol,” Scotty said with relief, “what’s the problem?”
“The circuitry we brought over from the Intrepid to test is stone-cold dead.”
“Corrosion?”
“That’s what Leah thinks.”
“And what do you think?” Scotty doubted Brahms was wrong, but it always paid to get as many opinions as possible.
“I think she’s probably right.” Vol wrapped a tentacle around the circuit junction that had been brought across, and held it up. “Just look at it, frozen solid for a couple of thousand years.”
“I thought,” Rasmussen said carefully, “that corrosion required oxygen, or at least some compound to react against.”
“Radiation,” Scotty said. “It’s probably been subjected to enough to spark a growth of material inside the connectors.”
“Aw, no,” Vol exclaimed. “You bloody know what that means! We’ll have to re-fabricate every bloody circuit on the ship!”
“Aye,” Scotty said sadly.
“And how long will that take,” Rasmussen asked, “just out of interest?”
“With replicator technology, not long at all.”
“It’s the all-the-king’s-horses-and-all-the-king’s-men bit that gives me the willies, mate,” Vol grumbled.
“Maybe we’d better take a look for ourselves,” Scotty mused. He turned to Rasmussen. “In as few words as possible, laddie, are ye up for steppin’ back into your past with Vol and I?”
Rasmussen blanched, then cleared his throat. “I suppose so. That’s what you wanted me for, after all.”
Ten minutes, and a ride in the Clyde, later, Scotty stepped aboard Intrepid for the first time. It was different from his old Enterprise. Smaller, more cramped, with duller décor. He bumped his magnetically booted foot on the lower edge of a door lintel, and cursed. When had starships stopped having bulkhead edges around the doors? He found that he didn’t know, and felt a moment’s guilt. He had never thought about the matter before, but now it would be stuck in his mind every time he went through a door.
In engineering, he, Vol, and Rasmussen found La Forge and Brahms poring over the warp engine control board, and Barclay leaning into an open access panel in the side of the hulking warp core, his head and shoulders fully inside it. The man was as daft as a brush, he thought, wishing he could have done it first. “Some kind of crystalline growth in the connectors,” Brahms was saying. “It must be the material they used back then.”
“Yeah,” La Forge agreed, “it looks like monofilament keramide. Once the hull polarization was down, long-term exposure to solar radiation could have started crystal growth inside.”
“That’s what we thought as well,” Scotty said. La Forge and Brahms straightened, while Barclay scrambled out of the inspection hatch. “There’s no two ways about it, we’re gonna have to replace the lot.”
“That’s impossible,” Brahms protested. “We’d have to dismantle the whole ship to do that.”
“It depends on how much of the system is affected.”
Vol took Barclay’s place, and somehow squeezed half his bulk into the hatch. “The whole kit and caboodle,” his muffled voice said. “The whole connector system’s about as much use as a dead rat in—”
“I get the idea.”
Vol levered himself back out of the hatch. “It’s totally bollixed up in there. He started pulling tools from the belts around his tentacles. “But if it’s dismantling you want, then . . . no time like the present.” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice.
“Just a minute,” La Forge interrupted. “We need to replicate a new connector web, right?”
“Aye.” Scotty could hear something in La Forge’s tone; the man was about to spring an idea on him. “Go on.”
“The replicator uses a transporter matter-synthesis system, right? So couldn’t we modify, say, one of the cargo transporters, to feed the replicator’s output directly through into a transporter beam, directed here?”
Scotty saw instantly that they could. It was a simple enough solution. “We’ll need to use pattern enhancers to be sure that everything lines up to within a micron. I’m sure Carolan will do us proud.”
“I’ll need to use the holodeck,” Carolan said, as she looked at a padd with the schematics of Intrepid’s power distribution nodes. She and Hunt were in transporter room one, trying to determine how best to beam the new connector material to Intrepid.
“How come?” Hunt asked.
“It’ll need the transporter to be running on a continuous cycle,” she explained, “beaming the old connector material out and the new material in. It’ll be easier to do it from a scaled-up schematic, using contact with the lines as the energizing control.”
“Where will you be beaming the old material to?”
“I’ll have the pattern buffer divert it to replication storage. Basically it’ll recycle the old connector material as it goes along.”
“Sounds good,” Hunt said with a nod. “Let’s set up a holodeck.”
Five minutes later, Carolan was standing in holodeck two, at the heart of an oversized-schematic of the Intrepid’s connector network. She raised a hand, and touched it to one of the lines, which tingled and buzzed slightly. She had set it to do that just enough to let her know when she was in contact with it.
Slowly, Carolan began walking the length of the room, keeping her hand on the line. As she did, the holodeck read her hand position and transferred it to the transporter’s targeting scanners.
“What’s she doing?” Guinan asked Hunt. She had hoped to make use of the holodeck, but found it occupied.
“Repairing a starship by touch,” Hunt told her.
La Forge could hear a faint sparkling whine, but it took him a while to work out where it was coming from. He slid down the metal steps to the floor of the Intrepid’s engine room in search of the source, and tracked it down to a deck panel. His cybernetic eyes could make out a flare of familiar energy through the floor plate.
“What is it, Geordi?” Scotty asked.
La Forge knelt and levered up the floor plate. A silver rain of transporter energy was moving along a power conduit, consuming the dull and near-fossilized material, and leaving gleaming new connections behind. “You’re right. Carolan is a magician with a transporter.” Everyone in the room grinned enthusiastically, and even Vol flushed a pale gold.
By evening Vol was a thundery gray, and was using two tentacles to hold the inspection hatch apart, while a smaller pair tested the fit of some parts inside. “Well, this is a right pickle, innit Guv?”
Scotty tried to peer past him. “That it is, but I’m sure Mister Rasmussen here will be able to advise and assist.”
“Anything I can do to help,” Rasmussen said brightly.
“Can you tell us anything about this dilithium chamber?”
“I already said I was only a civilian. This sort of thing was classified.” He paused. “Now that the connector web has been replaced I don’t see any reason why you can’t switch it on.” He hes
itated. “Oh, maybe one reason. They used dilithium, even back then.”
“Tell me another,” Vol grumbled.
“Actually that is the reason. Your—I mean our—twenty-fourth-century dilithium is much purer and better refined. It may be allowing the system to overload.”
That sounded sensible enough to Scotty. It would be like trying to drink pure ethanol instead of neat—but diluted at the distillery—Scotch. “He could have a point, Vol. If you put rocket fuel in an ancient internal combustion engine, what would happen?”
“Flame out?”
“Aye.”
“So you’re telling me we need some rubbish dilithium,” Vol said dubiously.
“Aye. And since there’s not enough left of Intrepid’s own supply, we’ll have to make some of that as well.” Scotty ran a thumb through his mustache as he thought. “We can’t just replicate dilithium, but if we run some of our reserves through a transporter buffer and purposely allow the pattern to degrade, say by . . .” He turned to Rasmussen. “How pure was dilithium back in your day? In mine it was refined to 99.25% but it must have been more impure before.”
“I haven’t a clue,” Rasmussen admitted. “Never worked with the stuff. But I imagine you have historical files with all those handy-dandy details.”
“We do,” Brahms said.
“I think it would be wiser if Geordi and Leah looked into this downgrade,” Scotty said decisively. “You two go back to Challenger and give me dilithium of the appropriate impurity. Then get down to engineering so you can keep an eye on the power we’ll need to transfer to this warp core.”
“A jump-start?” Rasmussen commented appreciatively. “Nice.”
La Forge tapped his combadge. “La Forge to Ente—Challenger. Two to beam over.”
Brahms and La Forge materialized on the Challenger’s transporter pad, and nodded to the ensign on duty. “I think this should work,” La Forge was saying. “We direct suitable energy directly into the Intrepid’s power distribution system, and her own warp core should be able to take over pretty quickly.”
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